


The Life of Lily Williams

by e_frye



Series: Blue Muse [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Childhood, Fluff, Gen, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_frye/pseuds/e_frye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories from the childhood of one Lily Williams</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Day

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not Moffat, I don't own Doctor Who. This is the unbeta'd inter-workings of my crazy head canon. 
> 
> Also I will try and post these shorts in the most chronological of means, but inspiration doesn't always cooperate.

September 1952

The siblings filed out of the house and stood on the front porch each of them wrapped up in their best coats. The little red headed girl shivered with excitement as her bother helped her place the backpack over her shoulders, she smiled brightly as her mother joined them on the steps. The older woman fumbled to place a roll of film into the camera in the chill morning mist. Amelia placed the camera down and crouched down to look into her daughters eyes.

"All right, Lily." She said adjusting the lapel of her jacket and tucking the girls hair behind her ears. "I want you to be good a school. Play with the other kids, try and make a friend or two. Anthony look after her please." She added firmly, as she placed the camera back in her hands. She ushered the children to stand on the front steps while she snapped a photo of them before the first day of school. It had been a silly tradition which her own mother had done, one she had come to see the value in.

The little family walked the five blocks to the school in relative silence. The two children ran ahead, Lily dragging her brother along. Amelia watched her children as they grew further and further out of view. It was just school; it was what she kept trying to tell herself. That she would see them again at three o'clock they would only be gone for a few hours. It wasn't the end of the world, but it felt like it. They were growing up and Amy knew how fast time would fly. She knew that in just ten short years they would both be nearly grown up they would be slowly puling away from her and entering the world. And Amelia Williams knew of the world to come, of rock and roll and the Vietnam War. The world was going to be at a crossroads and someday both Anthony and Lily would be caught in that wave of rebelling youth. 

As the rounded the corner the tears began to fill her eyes. Children were filling into the large brick school so unassuming it just had a number. She looked around to see where her children were. Looking for that bright red hair which was so easy to spot in the crowd to catch her eye. But they must have already ran ahead into the school. Her heart sank slightly as she looked up at the building. They were gone, just like that without a care. She realized that in their minds they both though they were ready for school, that to them this was just a new adventure. She had planned on waiting until the last bell rang, until those metal doors closed before she set off, but she couldn’t. 

Amy turned to head back home, and felt a sudden squeeze around her abdomen. She looked down in surprise, to see her daughters arms wrapped around her waist. Lily looked up at her with a toothy smile not understand the look of desperation on her mothers face. 

"Bye Muma." She chirped before she let go and ran back up into the school.

Amy smiled, the teachers were going to beat that quasi British accent out of her in no time just like they had done with Anthony the year before. But they were going to have no idea of how to deal with how intelligent she was going to be. 

 

***

Three o'clock came and Amy found herself waiting out side the school, just another well dressed mother waiting in line. She smiled running a hand through her deep red hair and smiling politely. She knew how much the other mothers were jading her, some of they were half her age. They looked at her with pity, such young children at such an old age. If only she could tell them her mind, that she and seen more in this world that they could ever imagine, that her children were a miracle. 

The bell rang, and all the malicious thoughts were removed from her head. Children began filing out filling the street with a chorus of voices. "Where's your sister?" She asked Anthony as he meet up with her.

The boy shrugged his shoulders carelessly "Her class is at the other end of the school."

"Anthony your promised that you would look after her, you said that she would be your responsibly." Amy said through gritted teeth as she glared at him with wide eyes. The crowds were beginning to thin out and she was becoming more worried. She scanned the crowds for that red hair in a panic, and finally found her standing at the top of the stairs. 

She ran towards her daughter with a speed she had not run at in years. She hugged Lily tightly as the panic subsided within her. "Did you get lost, did you?"

"Ms. McGreevy wants to speak with you." Lily said in a well punctuated voice. 

"All right." Amy replied standing up and taking both her children in her hands. "Lead the way." Lily lead them through the empty hall ways to a small room with miniature desks all in rows and colorful charts on the walls. 

Ms. McGreevy the grey haired teacher who was only a few years older than Amelia herself looked up as they entered the room. She was taken aback by the strong resemblance of the mother and daughter and not the son; but then most people were.

"Mrs. Williams." She said as she sat down at her desk in the front of the room, Amy approached cautiously. "Are you aware that your daughter can read?"

Amy laughed a bit as she stood in front of the desk. "She can recognize words like her name and places when we point them out to her at home, but I don’t think she can read Ms. McGreevy." She politely replied.

The stern woman picked up a Dick and Jane reader and handed it to Lily. "Lily can you read this aloud for your mother."

Lily looked at her mother sheepishly and then opened the book up to the first page and read aloud in a clear voice " Dick said 'look, look. Look up. Look, up, up, up.'" Lily continued reading through the whole book without any trouble, something not even Anthony could probably do. Amy tried to hide a smile as Lily continued reading the book. Of course she was going to be brilliant, was there really any other possible outcome.

As Lily finished the book she placed it down on the teachers desk and sat back down next to her brother, whom she began to kick gently underneath the desk.

"Mrs. Williams both your children are adopted correct?" She whispered, the word adopted with a tone of scandal.

"Yes they are." Amy replied with an artificial smile "Is that relevant?"

"What you've experienced with your sons education growth many be different from your daughters. Children's levels of intelligence can be pre-disposed from what their parents own levels of education are and-"

Amy cut in sharply "Ms. McGreevy do you have any suggestions of how we can help Lily succeed in school?" She knew exactly what the woman was insulating and was doing her best not to one up the woman with some futuristic discoveries of brain science. 

"I would suggest that Lily is placed in a first grade classroom."

Amy nodded, not at all surprised by the idea. She looked over at her two children who were still fighting beneath their chairs. "Is it possible that she can not be placed in the same class as her brother." Amelia Williams replied with a smile.


	2. House Calls

July 1952  
   
The sun was barely up and yet the small kitchen was buzzing with life. The two children sat at the kitchen table with wooden cars in their hands making them silently race across the metallic table top as their mother banged cabinet doors open and shut. Amy was trying to make breakfast as fast as she could while still keeping the kitchen clock in eyesight at all times. She threw eggs into the frying pan and toast in the toaster, turning around to catch her breath as Rory came into the kitchen. It wasn’t every day that a newspaper would give a woman the opportunity to become a reporter, especially in 1952.She couldn’t afford to be late.   
   
"What are you doing wearing that?" She asked her brow furrowed as she looked at the simple black suit her husband was wearing.   
   
"I'm making calls today." Rory said calmly as he came in ruffling both of his children's hair and pecking his wife on the cheek.  
   
Amy's jaw hung open as she closed her eyes in concentration. "No that’s tomorrow, you wrote it down." She said pointing to a piece of paper tacked to the white refrigerator which read 5/4 house calls in Rory's cramped handwriting.  
   
Rory smiled at her, kissing her again "Other way around." Over ten years of living in America and Amy still always managed to read the date the wrong way.  
   
She exclaimed a shivering sigh trying to hide her frustration. "I can't take them with me."  
   
"I know." He replied calmly squeezing her hand. "Can Mrs. Reiss watch them?"  
   
Amy shook her head, "She's gone on holiday." She looked around the room, panic seeming to fill her. This was an opportunity which did not come around very often, but she had responsibilities. Two young children who could not be left at home alone and no one to watch them, the crushing reality fell over her as she turned sharply to look at the clock striking her doom.  
   
"I'll take them with me." Rory said moving to catch her eye. "It’s only a few appointments; we’ll be back by noon. I’ll do my best to insure they don’t catch anything strange." He added with a smile.  
   
Amy laughed in exasperation and turned back to the stove. The first crisis of the day had been solved.  
   
***  
   
The first visit, to a large Irish family in a small lower Manhattan apartment had gone quite well. Lily and Anthony had waited patiently in the family's kitchen while Rory gave out shots and prescribed rest and hydration. They were both too young to remember a time when Rory had worked in a hospital. Shortly after Lily had come into their lives he had taken to spending most of his days making house calls and focusing on family medicine. The work was duller than what he had experienced at the hospitals, but it was more important for Rory to cure colds and spend time watching his children grown up than wearing a white lab coat.   
   
Lily and Anthony, five and six respectively knew very little about the workings of adults. They had seen their father come and go with his black case, but they never understood what he did. They followed him along to three more tall apartment buildings where they rode up quaking elevators and sat in rosy living rooms while their father attended the young and old. After each visit they would file into their fathers car and drive off to a new place.  
   
At their last stop they followed the same routine, ride up to the tenth floor of a brick apartment building and walk down a long corridor until they came to a stop. However as they reached the end Rory turned back to look at his children.   
   
“You’ll have to wait out here.” He said as he knocked on a door and was promptly let in.  
   
Both children looked up and down the long hallway, and Anthony spotting a lone rubber ball at the end ran down and picked it up in his hands. It was too small to be a proper sized ball for any sport but it was large enough for them to kick back and forth. They set established which doorways would be respective goal posts and began playing a makeshift game of soccer.   
   
"Why can’t we go in?" Lily asked as she kicked the ball hard at Anthony who stopped it with his foot and positioned it for his own kick.  
   
"Because Dad said so." He replied as he kicked the ball hard and sent it past Lily and towards his own imaginary goal.  
   
"Whyyyy?" She drew out the word as she ran back with the ball and placed it down. She took a running start and sent it flying down the hallway.  
   
"I don’t know." Anthony wined as the ball went past him. A door flew open and Rory popped his head out to give them a stern look which clearly communicated that they were to stop. Both children fell against the sides of the hallway in disappointment as the ball continued to roll away from them.  
   
"I'm bored." Lily exclaimed as she spread out face down on the floor, her limbs flaying as she wiggled for attention. Anthony crawled over to her and started poking her with his foot. She moved more, at first enjoying the strange game before turning angry and beginning to tackle him.   
   
A door opened and heavy footsteps approached them. A hand took hold of Anthony and pulled him up. Rory looked down at his children, expressing disappointment but not at all surprised. "No fighting." He said through gritted teeth as Lily stood up on her own looking rather grumpy.  
   
"Bored." She spat as she ran to kick her ball and walk towards the elevator.  
   
"Why couldn't we go? We went in all the others?" Anthony added as they got into the elevator and began to descend.  
   
Rory looked down at the children on either side of him. Never in his life had he ever expected to be faced with this very situation. "Because a little boy inside was very sick."  
   
"But we saw the others." Lily stated with a pout.  
   
Rory chuckled. "Yes, but this boy was too sick. Only I could see him."  
   
"Why?"  
   
Because your mother would kill me if you got chicken pox was what he wanted to say. "Because I'm a doctor."  
   
A smile flashed across the children's faces. They had always heard the word before, but they never had understood it. "What's a doctor?"  
   
Rory smiled at his children. He crouched down so he could look them both in the eye. "I help make people who are hurt or sick better." A strange expression flashed across Lily’s tiny face, her brain making connections she could barely understand. “That’s what doctor’s do, they help people.”  
   
“I wanna be a doctor.” Lily squeaking with an impish smile.   
   
Rory laughing, running a hand through her wild light red hair “Maybe one day you will be.” He added before standing up as the elevator stopped. “How about we go out for lunch, since you two managed to behave most of the time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has been so long, I promise to update more often from now on.


	3. Dancing With Spoons

April 1953

He could hear the music playing as soon as he opened the door, Rocking around the Clock. It brought back memories of his own childhood in the far off future. The music was comforting and familiar to him, of course to every other person his age it seemed blasphemous.   
   
Rory took off his coat and hung it by the door. He craned his neck up the stairs; the lack of small feet running towards him was making him cautious. He continued back through the living room into the kitchen scanning the house to see where everyone could possibly be. The music was coming from the record player in the living room and was accompanied by the strong aroma of pasta sauce cooking. Rory angled himself just out of view from the door way so he could watch his wife and two children dancing to the song, spoons in their hands as they kicked their feet out and shuffled about the kitchen floor.   
   
The sight of it made his chest tighten a little as he held back tears. It all seemed so normal, it was so normal. All the crazy adventures he had with the Doctor, dying all those times, waiting for 2,000 years, losing River. For so many years he lived knowing that he would never achieve the life he had grown up wanting. But then they had been ripped from the Doctor and thrown into an era which they had read about in the history books. Rory had lived through World War 2, again. Yet this time everything was different. No longer immortal he fixed up the men wounded in battle knowing that his Amy was waiting from him back in America. And when it had all ended, when they finally both came home, they looked at each other knowing what they wanted to do next. Nearly twenty years after losing out on the proper childhood of their own daughter they became parents again.  
   
Rory looked on as his wife and children had a silly moment. All of them singingly loudly and dancing rather awkwardly in the kitchen. Amy gave Anthony a small spin, and the boy come into view of the doorway and let out a small yelp.  
   
"Daddy" He said as he ran to hug his father. Rory stepped into the room and smiled at his wife. He had always loved her, but somehow the red tomato sauce clashing with her hair made her only more beautiful. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek as Lily wrapped her arms around his legs.   
   
"You know." He whispered with a knowledgeable smile "People of our age aren't supposed to like this music."  
   
Amy laughed hearty as she turned to give the pot another stir. "I guess we’ll just be the cool parents then, approving of Elvis and the Beatles." She murmured sassily.   
   
"We are going to embarrass them so much." He replied with mock scandal.  
   
She laughed even more, her hair swaying as she rocked back and forth. "They have no idea."  
   
Rory chuckled and reached down to take Lily by the hand, dancing with her one handed as the music played on.   
 


	4. Fever Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lateness, I was visiting family and busy with work. But I promise to try and update more regularly in the new year.

October 5th,1953

"Rory" Amy muttered in a hushed concerned voice as she read the level of red mercury on the small thermometer. She checked Lily's temperature again and yet again at the staggering result. "She's cold. Really cold."

He took the thermometer from her, his instincts as a parent over ruling all of his medical training. Her internal temperature was nearly at seventy degrees, yet the six year old child continued to throw off every blanket they placed on her, complaining she was too hot. His knowledge of medicine, even his knowledge of alien medicine was failing him. All Rory could do was look down upon the shivering and coughing body of his little girl and be filled with bottomless sense of fear. He watched as Lily began to cough again, a deep nearly barking like cough that made it sound like she was nearly dying.

"Rory." Amy whispered again, as she ran a hand across Lily's forehead at the little girl regained her breath. Anthony was peaking in the doorway, scared as he watched his parents at his sister’s bedside. Even as a child he had heard the horror stories of strange diseases such as polio, but his parents had far more exotic concerns.

His jaw seemed to clench, the words not wanting to escape from his mouth. "I don’t care, I'm calling him." Rory resolved and he marched out of the room and down to the phone with deep determination. He still remembered the phone number after all these years, and if Lily really was terribly sick… of course he would come. 

"Dad, what's wrong with her." Anthony whispered frightfully as he stood on the staircase watching as his father picked up the rotary phone with a heavy sigh. 

"We don’t know Anthony." Rory replied in as comforting as a voice as he could manage while racked with fear. "That’s why I'm calling a doctor." He added bleakly

"But you are a doctor, can’t you fix her."

Rory closed his eyes in pain and the little boy shuffled his feet at the sight of his father so distressed. "Go up to your room Bud." He replied as he held the phone to his ear, yet Rory waited to dial until he heard the boys door close shut.

The last digit locked with a click as Rory leaned against the wall in despair. He could still hear Amy reading Peter Pan to Lily, and her responding with hacking coughs every few moments. They knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but if they lost her… it was all too soon... He placed his free hand against his forehead as the dial tone rang out, it would have been easier to light a massive bonfire in order to attract the Doctor's attention, but he didn’t have the time.

"Hello," Came the deep and crooning voice of River Song on the other line. "You've reached the TARDIS, were a bit busy saving the-" Beep.

"Oh for God's sake Doctor answer your damn phone for once." Rory snapped into the receiver.

"Oooo, calm down a bit love." River snapped back at him. Rory almost dropped the phone in shock. He was in no mood for games of any sort. "I was only joking with the answer phone bit.

"This is not the time for jokes Melody Pond. You tell the Doctor that we need him. October the 5th 1953, 20:45." 

When River replied it was in a dull tone which told her she understood what he was asking of the Doctor. "You know he can't."

"Yes. He. Can." Rory replied firmly cutting her off once more. "And he will. October 5th 1953" He added hanging up. As soon as he placed the phone back on the receiver there was the ring of the doorbell. Feeling relief cascade over him for the first time in three days Rory walked to the front door and opened it without looking too see who was awaiting him on the step.

"I think you forget about me sometimes." River snapped back at him, a hand placed on her hip as she looked at her father with a frown, still in her sarcastic mode.

"No. No. No. No." Rory muttered as River walked into the foyer. "I said the Doctor, what part of send the Doctor do you not understand Melody?"

"You know he can’t visit you father." She snapped back at him, scolding him as if it was all a trivial affair "It would rip a hole in the-"

"You don’t understand he will come we ask. He knows we wouldn’t ask unless it was a matter of life and death." The hollowness of his expression had caused her to stop and look at him closely. He was sleep deprived and pale faced; he looked utterly horrible and completely livid at the sight of her.

"She might be able to help." Amy replied darkly from the top of the stairs. "Rory. She's able to help."

With a stricken face he turned to look at his wife who was standing resolutely while peering down at the pair. Amy took a few steps down the stair case but stopped midway. The tension hung in the air. From Rory staring at Amy wondering if she was mad, from River who had no clue what was going on, and to Amy who looked as if her very heart was breaking.

Amy was crying, if not for herself but rather the sake of those around her. She remembered, she waited, and it was her own life which was a convoluted ball of non-linear existence. And Lily, for all they knew the little girl was dying of some strange disease and River was a chance they had. But it was a chance, a faint hope that maybe River would be able to remember for long enough to help them out at all. 

"River you better come up here." Amy muttered as she turned back up the stairs. The daughter followed her mother with a pale face, her eyes wide as she tried to deuce what was happening. They all ascended the stairs silently walking towards the sounds of the wrenching coughing. 

Lily was sitting on the bed, in short night dress, shivering as she fussed with the flat sheet covering her body. Her red hair was plastered against her skin, her body pale and covered with sweat. River peeked her head into the room and turned to face Amy her expression becoming vulture like. 

"Is this some little sister you haven't gotten around too… what was it you needed from me." Rory gave a sharp wimpier as the tone in her voice turned from furious to placid. Amy pulled her away from the door and looked her eldest daughter in the eye with a strained face.

"Did you ever get sick as a kid River? Really strange sick, symptoms that no human has?"

"Yes, once or twice." River replied still confused. Amy took her by the hand and led her into Lily's bedroom. Sitting her down beside her own daughter’s bed and giving her Lily's hand.

Rory stood in the doorway watching as the three impossible generations of women each looked at each other with a strange expression of hope.

"This is your daughter Melody." Amy began, making sure that the real mother and daughter couple were holding hands that, River was looking down at her daughter. "You haven't give birth to her yet." Amy lied. "She's sick River, and we don’t know what to do."

River looked down at the child, her life never made any sense, for once she wished it made sense. She held the small, clammy hand in her own; and heard the girl's rattling breath. This was her daughter, for a moment River wondered if she even wanted to be a mother. She looked at the little girl, wishing she should feel something more substantial other than confusion. River held the hand in her own; the girl had Rory's nose, and a distinct lack of eyebrows. And when the girl fluttered her eyes open at River, there was recognition. 

The doubt which had once filled her disappeared as she looked into the small hopeful eyes of the child. Tight clammy fingers clenched around hers, and River was certain for the first time in a very long while that this little girl was in fact her own daughter. For a moment it was as if there could never have been any doubt, as if the concept of doubt was impossible. For a moment, River almost remembered that she had held the child once before, that she had already been a mother. 

Amy gave an audible sigh of relief as she watched the scene unfold. Her daughters, together and remembering who the other was, it seemed to ease the haunting truth she carried with her every day. It seemed to lighten the burden; the heart breaking knowledge that her own child, her daughter, would never be able to remember her own child. She would remember this moment for River and Lily and it would ease her soul.

River was running a hand across her own daughter, checking for a fever moving instinctively as the feverish girl looked up at her with a weary smile. "Has she had any vaccinations?" River asked, turning back to look at her parents in the doorway. She was still holding Lily's hand, and even though she wasn't looking at the child, the memory of her was still held in her eyes. 

"No." Rory replied bluntly, as if it wasn't a question to be asked at all. "We just figured that, well she's different and…?"

River stifled a small laugh as she turned back to run a finger gently down the side of Lily's face. "She has the flu. Normal human being flu, it just looks a bit different on a Time Lord. The fever will break in a few hours." River replied with a smile.

"Oh." Amy exclaimed from the doorway, suddenly feeling a bit foolish. River smile back at them, moving to stand up when Amy quickly shouted in a panicked voice. "Stay with her. Stay with her till her fever breaks, please."

River sat back down, doing as she was told. She looked small, almost like a child as she sat by the bedside not quite sure why she was there. But she stayed. She didn’t ask how after all these year of living in Manhattan they would come to be the guardians of her own child. She did ask anything. It was almost as if River herself was holding Lily's hand trying to remember who she was. 

Lily lay on the bed writhing back in forth as she attempted to sleep only to be awoken by fits of coughing and chills. River stayed with her wiping away her sweat, apply compresses, holding her small hand. But the frustration was visible on her face, she had been sitting at the girl's beside for over an hour and the lack of progress was making her antsy. 

"Tell her a story, talk to her River, she just needs to sleep." Amy muttered as she adjusted the little girls blanket once more.

"Of what?"

"For goodness sake River, you've known the Doctor you entire life and yet you can’t think of a story to tell her about any one of the many universes you have ever seen." Amy chided as she folded a sheet and bustled about the bedroom.

River leaned forward contemplating, of all the stories she knew which ones would be suitable for a child. Certainty not the ones from her own childhood, those were all far to scarring. And there were far too many tales which exemplified some of Rivers penchants for acting on the wild side. River wondered who the little red headed girl was going to become, which sides of the Doctor she should contain. River knew instinctively that that was who the girl’s father had to be. 

"I bet you know all about the Doctor." River whispered as the child shifted in her sleep again. "That mad man, and his box. Well, our box really. This one time, we were in the Amazon about 1421, right before Columbus came and mucked it up and of course the Doctor had to go and get himself mistaken for a god…" River continued on her voice trailing off as she retold the tales. Somewhere highly edited, some were nearly all made up, but they were all she could think of to tell her child.  
~~~  
Amy and Rory left the room several hours ago, but they could still hear from next door as the tales crept through the walls. Rory was pacing the room, he had medical and science books all thrown about her room. "How is she remembering Amy?"  
~~~  
River continued on, "See he was obsessed with appearing in a Harry Potter film, but I had once had a bad run in with Alan Rickman, so he very nearly gave a way the technology for flying broomsticks just to have a chance too..."  
~~~  
Amy stood up and gently rubbed him by the shoulders. "Does it really matter Rory. She can still blink and remember her own daughter, just let her have this moment."  
~~~  
"And I told him there was no way there were going to go for that; universal wi-fi was a thing of the future. But there he was with a dial up modem and toaster in a shed in surrey attempting to create a wand…"  
~~~  
"They changed her brain's physiology, they rewired the way she thinks. They literally replaced her memories and stopped her ability to remember new ones about her own daughter." Rory replied flinging his hands in the air.  
~~~  
"He had actually managed to capture a krestalian eagle, but the TARDIS refused to allow it on board, so that approach was shot."  
~~~  
Amy sat back down on the bed and looked at Rory with dark and determined eyes. "I remember a world Rory, in which you didn’t exist, and yet somehow River did, and I managed to will you back into existence. Our minds are mess up enough, and I know we gave it all up a long time ago. But the two girls in there are both Time Lords, we have no way of knowing how their minds work. For River's sake, if she could retain this memory, Rory think of what that would mean."  
~~~  
"Eventually he talked his way into a part, but the real kicker came on his first day of filming. We hadn't even been on the lot for twenty minute, and he seems this woman from across the room. Tall woman in a leather jacket, hair in a twisted up spiky do. He turns to me and says 'River what year is it?' and I reply '2003.' And then he got that look on his face, the one when he realizes that he has made a huge mistake. It turns out he had already appeared in the fourth Harry Potter film and he had 'forgotten due to the loss of memory of an unexpected bio-crisis.' But to this day I think he only went through all that trouble just to see the look on Alan Rickman's face when he saw me again.  
~~~  
A loud burst of wrenching like coughing caught their attention once more, and both Amy and Rory stood up and ran next door. Lily was sitting up awake in bed, color returning to her cheeks again as her eyes fluttered open.

"Her fever's broken." River stated as they entered the room. Amy nodded and watched as Rory swept next to the girl, beginning to offer her some medicine. 

"You can go now." Amy labored "If you like." River looked down at her watch and smiled.

"Best be off, I sort of left the TARDIS dangling off the side of a building on a planet with no gravity, he'll be mad at me." She stood up and bent down to place a small kiss on the forehead of her daughter. "See you around Lily."

She turned around breaking contact with the little girl’s slightly glowing hand, her own hand dropping to her side as her face fell. She looked at her watch. "Dear god what have we been up to?" River exclaimed in her normal jovial voice. She almost turned her head back to catch a glimpse of the girl, but Amy grabbed her forearm and dragged her into the hallway.

"Movie night River. Ended a bit late." She said shortly. "Best be off." Her jaw seemed to clench with disappointment. Amy clung onto the top of the railing as she watched her own grown daughter walked down the stairs and out the front door. It had all been for nothing. The door slammed and moments later the electronic crack told them she had left.

"Mom" Amy felt her shoulders collapse as she hear her daughter call after her. She turned back to the bedroom, whipping away at her own tears. She walked back into the room her body shaking with enough anger to punch a hole in space and time. It wasn’t fair how River’s punishment seemed to affect her less than it did the people around her. 

Rory was standing at Lily’s bedside, tucking her into bed. "Try to go to sleep for a while darling, you'll feel a bit better in the morning." He kissed her forehead and walked to the doorway to join Amy. He took his wife's hand and squeezed it hard as he shut off the lights in Lily's bedroom. 

"Her body was trying to repair itself." Rory whispered in the darkness. "For a moment it repaired River's as well."


	5. The World of Yesterday

July 1955

The hot desert air flowed through the car, howling as they barreled down the long highway with the windows rolled down. Two children sat in the back of the car; a boy reading a Hardy Boys novel and a little red headed girl holding the ends of a slinky in her hands. She was raising and lowering each hang, making the spring clatter as gravity acted upon it. The boy looked up from his novel and swatted at the metal thing, making it fly across the backseat of the car.

"Mom Anthony is taking my stuff." Lily called out as she shoved her older brother in the shoulder.

"She's the one annoying me." Anthony replied sticking his tongue out at his younger sister. 

Amelia turned around from the pass anger seat to look at her two children. She sighed at the sight of them attempting to fight in the backseat of a moving vehicle. "Lily find something quiet to do." The girl rolled her eyes as she slunk down to the floor of the car to pick up her own book. Amelia turned back around, placing her hand out of the window and soaking in the moment.

They were driving cross country as they had done every summer since their children were adopted. This year they were heading to California, to some place Amy had wanted to go to for a very long time. She glanced once more back at Anthony and Lily who were now both reading. They would soon be too old for these trips, wanting to spend their summers in the city with their own friends. but until that day came they still had these trips. Driving cross country in the middle of the summer for three weeks in a car with little air conditioning. Traveling slowly down the back roads and seeing all the small towns along the way. America, flourishing.

"Are we there yet?" Lily whined, twisting about in the back seat. A smile formed on the corner of Rory's mouth as he looked at her sternly through the rear view mirror. 

"We just left the motel an hour ago Lily." Rory muttered under his breath.

She sighed and whined some more. Amy turned up the radio as the car continued to speed through the Arizona desert towards the California state line. The early rock and roll drifted through the car as the dry hills rolled by. They continued for nearly twenty minutes in silence before the children in the back seat began to speak once more. 

They looked so idyllic. the little family in their shinny car driving across the country, like a Rockefeller painting. It was of course a rather hilarious interpretation of the family unit. Two parents who were living out their lives before their were born, and their two adopted children, one of whom was really their grandchild. But it didn't matter, because family doesn't necessarily have to be the people who are related to you by blood. 

Movement in the backseat seemed to draw the parents out of their reverie. "Where are we going anyway?" Anthony muttered as he pushed his sleeping sister off his shoulder and against the window pane.

"Disneyland." His mother muttered dreamily.

"What is Disneyland?" He asked his voice filled with all the curiosity of a child.

"It's an amusement park."

"Like Coney Island."

She laughed at her sons suggestion. "No, not really, its different."

"Oh." He shifted in the seat, looking out at the barren land which had not changed much since they began driving. "Why are we going to Disneyland?"

"Because its opening. You get to go to Disneyland on the day it opens." Amy said turning to give him a bright smile.

"Is that important?"

She stifled a giggle, and looked at him knowledgeably. "It will be." She said before turning back around in her seat. Anthony scrunched up in his face in annoyance. They were always saying that, like they were so clever. He just found it annoying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be more soon, this snippet gave me a lot of trouble and I am still not happy with it, but you get the point.


	6. Mercury on the table

April 1960

"Did you get it?" Lily whispered as Anthony came into the kitchen and placed his back place very carefully on the table. 

"Yes I got it, Lee" He hissed as he opened up his bag slowly and produced a small glass vial. He held it in his hands rubbing it back and forth as he looked at her suspiciously. "Are you sure that mom will be at her meeting until five?" 

Lily nodded as she sat down at the table "Why do you think we are having pasta for diner." She snapped back. When Anthony continued to look at her worried she added, "And Dad is working the hospital today. He may not even be back before dinner." 

"Okay then. " Anthony said as he sat down at the table, still holding on to the mysterious vial. "I had to take this from the chemistry lab. I just hope Mr. Peters doesn't notice. Anthony said as he finally placed the vial on the table top. The silver liquid inside seemed to glimmer in the last remains of daylight. Lily picked it up in her hands and slowly uncorked the bottle. The mercury slipped into her hands as large silver ball. She placed it onto the table, it slid for a moment almost as if the semi solid element would slip off the table before it stopped it edges rounding out. 

"Neat." Lee said as she ran her finger through the liquid. It remained deeply gorged for a moment before it returned to its original form. 

Antony pulled at the mercury taking a small ball into his own hands and bouncing it up and down off the table. He laughed as Lee continued to treat it like silky putty. "And they said that science wasn't any fun." Anthony muttered as he continued to play with the substance absentmindedly. "So, and I heard that Tommy Wilkins asked you out to he dance." 

"Eck." Lee said making a face. "He isn't the only one." 

"Have you said yes to any of them? " Anthony asked

"No. Why would I don't want to go to some stupid dance where I have to wear a big pink dress. "

"Do you even like boys." 

"Yes."

"So this sudden wanted to be called Lee rather than Lily is about what then?" He asked her with a raised brow.

She rolled a small ball of mercury in her hands and threw it at him, but it lost all form in the air and splat onto the table instead. "Its about me wanting to be different than every other Betsy, Mary and Sue who only care about the curls in there hair and whether or not they will end up marrying Johnny Baker." She said rolling her eyes.

Anthony looked at her and sighed. He never really felt that she was much of a younger sister to him, they rarely argued and he knew that she was smarter and tougher than her, but with impending high school he was beginning to see how much he would have to defend her against what everyone else wanted her to be like. "Lee I know you don’t want to be seen as a girly girl but you have to understand that nobody really knows what to make of you anymore. You cant exactly play with the boys in the sandbox anymore and have that be okay."

Lily opened her lips to give her rebuttal against what he had said but the front door slammed open before she could speak. "Shit" Lee said as she tried to funnel the mercury back into the vial. She almost had it all before Amy walked into the Kitchen. 

"Mom. " Anthony said loudly twisting his body around to cover up what Lee was doing. "I thought you had a meeting." Anthony was attempting to keep his voice casual, and but Amy could still see through him. 

"Something came up." She replied as she turned quickly to see what Lee was doing. "Lily, what it behind your back?" She said seeing the glass hidden in the girl's hands. Lee looked for somewhere to hide it but Amy had already taken it from her before she could find a place. "What on earth is.... Is this mercury." Amy said looking at the vial. "This stuff can kill you, and it poisonous." She added heatedly

"No it's not." Anthony scoffed "We use in school all the time."

"It's poisonous. " Amy glared sternly "Up to your rooms now."

Both teens walked up the stairs to their rooms loudly as Amy settled down to begin on dinner. "Nice going Anthony." Lee spat from up stairs.

"You’re the one who suggested it Lily." He replied loudly.

Amy smiled as she looked at the vial on the kitchen table and listen to her children bicker overhead. "Do your homework both of you." She shouted up at them before sitting down at the table to uncork the vial and play with the toxic element herself. After all she had lived through a bit of mercury couldn’t hurt much.


	7. The British are Coming

February 1964

Lee bounded down the stairs running into the kitchen at top speeds as she plopped into her seat behind the table. Her hands took a firm hold on the piece of toast which had been left for her as she stared wildly at the clock.

"Lee what time did you go to bed last night?" Her mother muttered as she came in from the sitting room already wearing a suit and a disapproving glance. 

"None-of-your-busy-sness." The teen replied through a full mouth as she attempted to swallow. Though she was grateful that her mother was finally beginning to warm up to the idea of calling her Lee, a name she had been insisting at for over a year. Anthony walked into the kitchen sitting down next to his sister and calmly eating his breakfast. He rolled his eyes as her disheveled appearance and she replied sticking her tongue out childishly at her older brother. "Hey mom, Lori was wondering if she could come over tonight. Her parents already said it was okay."

Amelia leaned up against the countertops holding a mug of coffee in her hands. "Look under your plate." She said with an airy impishness. Lee looked at her mother with a raised brown before she lifted up the porcelain plate and peered under it suspiciously. 

There was a loud shriek followed by a crash as the plate previously concealing the tickets fell to the floor and shattered. Rory walked calmly into the kitchen and looked passively from his excited daughter to his smiling wife.

"Who’s attacking now?" He muttered as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the percolator.

"Oh just the British" Amy replied with a laugh as Rory titled his head in understanding and took his place leaning against the cabinets with his wife.

Lily, still hyperventilating, looked at everyone in awe. "I- I can't… how did you?"

"I knew a guy who owed me a favor." Rory said slyly. 

She looked at the tickets as if in horror and held them out to Anthony who just chuckled at her. She shuffled them in her hands, looking at every single typed word. "Why are there five?" She wheezed. 

Her mother replied casually "You, Lori, Anthony, your father and I."

Lily's flung herself into her chair dramatically. "No you can’t go it will ruin everything." She said as she slid her palms across the metal table.

"Oh you'll be up in the front with all the other screaming teenaged girls and your mother and I will be in the back." Rory said "Besides," He added darkly "those tickets can disappear very fast young lady."

"Why do you do this to me?"

"Because you’re seventeen. Our house, our rules." Amelia said with pursed lips.

But Lee was taken with excitement to really notice the mocking tone which her parents were using. "I gotta call Lori." She said suddenly, jumping up to cross the kitchen. "You know almost everybody's parents hate the Beatles." She added as an afterthought before she ran towards the hall phone.

"Guess that makes us the cool parents." Amy said as she and Rory high fived one another.

Anthony still sitting calmly at the kitchen table looked up at him with crossed eyes. "No." He said firmly.


	8. Lab Work

1966

She walked down the hallways of Columbia University with a sort of arrogance. Yes she was one of the only women in the physics department, but damn it all if she wasn’t the best one. At only nineteen Lee could already manage to solve equations which only the most advanced students could merely dream of. She approached the empty chemistry lab humming Mahler as she opened the door. Nine o'clock on a Friday night seemed to ensure her the true privacy that she needed to begin working on her own special project.

All the stack of the college knew she was smart, her test scores and aptitude in the class prove that every day. But no one, beside her parents and her brother were quite aware of how brilliant Lee Williams was. It wasn’t luck or effort which made her so smart. It was literally in her DNA. A genetic predisposition to effortlessly understand new languages and systems of reasoning and she focused all that power on her study of the sciences, not because it was what interested her.

It wasn’t as if she was bothered by living in the middle of the 20th century. It just bored her to death sometimes. She knew there were worlds with burning skies and eras filled wit h touchscreens and wireless internet, and she was in a time when color television was revolutionary. She could be so much more of a benefit to society if she were living in another time period.

But her options were rather limited. She could spent her life waiting to be whisked away, all the while attempting an ignored career in science. Or she could swim out to her ship of freedom while she still had the chance.

She flipped on the light switch to the lab and began to work on the crude electrical circuit which she kept in her handbag at all times. Time could be bent easily if she had all the right materials lined up in the right order. Of course what was available to her in the era could make a crude device at most, but she could jump forward a hundred years and perfect the device easily. 

She got to work, mixing chemicals, soldering wires connecting electrical circuits. She focused on the work, her head able to push aside everything else as she worked in silence. She could have heard the people walking towards the door if she had wanted to, but Lee was for a rare moment in her life too distracted.

The door opened loudly her eyes flashed up for a moment before she returned back to a beaker of green liquid. 

"Miss. Williams." Lee listened t o the gruff and unknown voice and immediately had to hide a smile. So many faces were seared in her mind, from the memories of a man she had not yet met. It was rare that Lee meet one of the people, especially living in America, but this particular FBI agent was quite unforgettable.

"Yes." She said as innocently as possible, while knowing fully what they were about to ask of her. She ran through all permutations of her answers in her head as quickly as possible. She couldn’t be a true field agent, but she could still accomplish things. Most of all, access to the world newest and secretive technologies would allow her to complete her vortex manipulator in a shorter span of time. 

"Miss Williams," It was her astrophysics professor addressing her, Andrew Cooper a stock character of the era. "I was wondering what your plans after graduation were?" It was an odd question to be asking at nine at night. While the gender roles of the sixties could try and contain her career possibilities, the institutions of high learning could not disregard her brilliance. She would be graduating at the end of the year after only two years of undergraduate education. 

"I was planning on attending graduate school and working towards a doctorate." She replied softly.

The be-suited FBI agent next to Cooper gave an almost inaudible grunt. "How will you support yourself financially."

Lee smiled sweetly, "I'll still live with my parents. My father is a doctor, my mother a writer they can afford the costs." She was making them dance around the main question at hand.

"My friend here feels that he many have a job which you would be well suited to." Cooper said, gesturing to the agent beside him.

"A secretarial job." Lee said with just the slightest tinge of disapproval.

"No." The agent spoke again, "You would be working in a lab with… computers." He said the last word as if he was suddenly trying to explain the Socratic method in Farsi. "Are you familiar with computers Miss. Williams?"

In 1966 computers were of course such a thing of new invention that they were kept hidden away in locked rooms, but in her mind she knew of the days when full computers would be no larger than a wallet in someone's hand. "A bit." She smirked.

"You’re working on a circuit board right now." Cooper said gesturing to the technological carcass on the table. "Would you feel comfortable following that vein of work."

Lee knew that if she joined the FBI she would pretend to be comfortable doing anything they said so. She also knew that it meant her entire life and her families would suddenly be under microscopic vision. But perhaps she could become a spy, she could travel the world she could live in the thrill of sudden death. It was all going to look like lab work on the surface, of course it would that was the FBI's current motto. Yet the promise of all the running she would have to do made her rather excited. 

"I would be very interested in continuing that work." Lee replied with a nod. Lily Williams, FBI had such a ring to it.

"I'll be in touch." The agent replied with a deep grunt. 

As they left Lee smiled even more, her great escape was even closer than before.   
____

"So this will be your office" Canton said as he turned on the light in the small room. He looked at the bank of computers and gave a shudder. "You'll be doing research. Somehow." 

She slid past him looking at the banks of processing boards. "It's just a computer Agent Delaware, nothing to be too afraid of. The thing of the future." 

"I don't know Lily." He muttered as he reached out a hand to touch a knob and quickly withdrew it, as if he had been shocked.

"Please call me Lee, I prefer it. " She replied breathlessly, as she placed her bag down on the floor and turned to look at him with a large smile. " What am I really doing? " She added sharply.

A half smile formed across his face. "What ever I need you to do. Mostly making sense of what we mange to gather from the Reds. A few things left over from the Germans. What languages are you fluent in again?"

"What ever you need me to be."

Canton rolled his eyes. "I'm not asking you to be smart with me, I can have you out of here before-"

"I wasn’t trying to be trouble." Lee remarked cutting him off quickly. "Languages really aren't a struggle for me. I know French, German, Russian, but if you need anything else, Chinese, Vietnamese , I can learn."

He cocked his head. "Really doing all you can to make yourself indispensable to the agency aren't you." Lee chose not to respond, making the choice to sit down at her computer instead. "Welcome to the FBI Agent Williams." Canton whispered before he closed the door leaving her all alone with her thoughts.


	9. Run Away

As much as she tried to walk softly down the corridor her feet still echoed in the emptiness of the Russian laboratory.  It was three in the morning and her eyes were fighting against the weight of sleep as her thighs burned with the stresses of having walked for such a distance in the cold to get here. Yet as her near frozen hands slipped a skeleton key into the locked door, her mind exploded with a thousand voices.

 

Working with as much light as the small flashlight could afford her, Lee walked briskly towards the small bank of computers lying across the room. She threw the contents of her satchel on the workstation as she sat down, working quickly by the dim light. Her hands shook as she tenderly worked on the circuit board, stopping only to look over her shoulder or to yank out a portion of the Russian computer before her.

 

An inhuman amount of fear was beginning to fill her body. Not the fear of being caught but rather that this attempt of advanced science would be the last thing she ever did in her lifetime. She had exhausted every possibility, tried every reactive element and all had failed.  This last circuit was her last hope, a particular wiring configuration only used in Soviet computers, something she could not recreate without seeing the device in person. She pushed the panel back into the Soviet computer, and looked at her recreation before her; if this did not work she would be stuck in this era.

 

With a quaking sigh of relief Lee threw all the spare parts back into her bag and looked at the mess of wire and green board before her. One jump was all she needed, one hop into a time when she could get all the correct materials and make a proper vortex manipulator. She put her satchel across her body as she double checked the coordinates of what she hoped would be a Los Angeles alleyway in 2035. Lee stood in the middle of the room, tying her own personal time machine to her wrist. She chuckled at the thought; if anyone else but her had made a time machine in 199 they would be getting a Nobel Prize.

 

Lee stood in a clear spot in the laboratory, holding her breath as her fourth and final attempt to defy the laws of everything known began. She turned the manipulator on and forced her eyes to stay open. The force of the machine caused her body to rock back and forth as a golden light spilled from the gears. It cascaded down to the floor, snaking up her legs until she was entrapped in golden vines. The sensation of being squeezed to the bone clashed with the simulations feeling that her body was being torn apart. The golden light had covered her eyes, and she could see in the streams glittering particles burning so bright she tried to impulsively shield her eyes but found she could not move. The intensity increase until she could stand it no longer that she closed her eyes. The pain and agony continued on for what seemed like a year.

 

Without warning her body fell forward and Lee’s hands automatically stretched out to break her fall against the pavement. For a moment she remained hunched over on ground dazed by the fall, until the realized that it was suddenly daylight. Lee laughed giddily as she stood up on the sidewalk looking up and down Sunset Boulevard. The newer glass and stone buildings contrasted darkly with the historical ones. Cars, sleek and minimalist lurched down the road, the drivers all looking angrily at the street lights. Tourists meandered down the street as locals walking briskly by with their heads down, yet it was less people than she had hoped for.

 

She took one quick look down at her all black and timeless attire before walking down the street at a reasonable speed. She scanned the crowd looking for easy targets, the locals walked by her with suspicion but the tourists. Lee walked along the edge of a small family group crowded around a sign. The youngest of the children not even five had a small mirrored communication device in their hands and was busily playing a game. Lee watched from a distance as the boy placed the device in his pocket as his mother began to drag him down the street. Lee followed along, walking behind them before quickly passing them by, pocketing the device as she went by. She slipped into an alleyway behind a Chinese restaurant where she took out the phone, stabbing at it with her fingers until it sprang to life reading 'unauthorized DNA unlock'.

 

With a scowl she placed the phone in her bag, hopping she could tear it apart for parts and began again down the street. She made her way down the long street pick pocketing what she could. At the end of nearly a mile and twelve pockets pickets she made her way down and side street to examine what she had stolen. There were only two wallets in her stash, which contained no cash only identification and credit card of an elderly man. Of the ten tablets she had in her possession only one was not bio locked. It took her three attempts to figure out the swipe pattern from the smudges on the screen before she was flicking through the digital displays.

 

Lee tapped away at a monetary symbol; from what she had seen of the future in the hour she had been there physical money was no longer used. But she could go back in time and set up an account for herself, she would have that ability in a day or two.  Taking a guess at the bank login she would set up, she was not surprised to see that she did have quite a healthy account in place. She looked at what she had, possibly enough parts to make something useful, money and time. What she needed was a newer more advanced phone and a place to work. Slipping her working phone into her pocket she set off down the street again in search for an electronics store.

 

Lee walked into the minimalist store with lines of multicolored devices against the wall holding her breath. The young representative came up with her and introduced himself. "I need a new phone." Lee stammered taking her stolen one out of her pocket.

 

She could tell that he was enjoying the naïvely of the pretty young girl before him who had not upgraded in a long while. "You mean a hand held?" He said with a smirk "All in one computing device, bio locked, and universal wi-fi? If you want just a phone we have those two." he said pointing to a wall with a rather dismal selection

 

"No." Lee said quickly wanting to gain some credentials with the man even though it was probably hopeless. "A hand held, something very durable though."

 

He smiled as he led her over to a wall where she could pick up the multi colored devices. Lee picked up one trying to look confident as she struggled to get it to respond. The sales man took it away from her tapping a rhythmic pattern in the center of the screen before handing the awakened device back to her. "Did you just move to America?" He asked bluntly. "It’s just your phone is nearly ten years old, it’s amazing that it is still working."

 

Anger filled inside of Lee, she wondered for a moment if she should say something defensive but she knew nothing of the world she was currently in. "I just moved back from Africa." She whispered as she picked up another computer and turned it on by herself. "I’ll take this one." She said in reference to the black heavy duty model in her hand.

 

***

 

Later that night as Lee lay out on a hotel room bed, sitting on her stomach with her feet up in the air as her fingers danced across the touchscreen of her handheld computer. She had spent hours already making the device unusable by anyone else but her, Attaching a solar charging panels and rigging the wi-fi to be universal in every sense of the word. She tapped on the search application, the blinking cursor haunting her as she was tempted to search her own name.  She would be dead by now, her parents and    possibly Anthony as well. How long would it take her to view their entire history on one small screen? But a word came to the forefront… _spoilers._

Instead she jabbed at the back button, opening up the note pad and typing a new list.

 

Ancient Rome

Galileo

American Revolution

Ming Dynasty

Jane Austen

Moon Colonization

 

She continued writing all the places and people she wanted to meet before long overdue sleep took a hold of her. For the first time in her life, the world was hers to conquer.

 

 

***

 

Lee closed the front door of her parents’ home behind her with as little noise as she could manage. She took off her coat, placing it on the rack as she looked at the clock on the wall. 5:23 pm, only about ten hours since she had left the country she was never supposed to be in. Yet something felt wrong, she walked over to the side table where the morning paper was still unopened.

 

"Shit", she whispered as she began to hear movement in the house. She pulled off the strange bracelet on her wrist and stuffed it into her pocket. She stood waiting in the entrance debating whether or not she should run back out into the hall and make a second attempt at her arrival back to the sixties.

 

"Where the hell have you been, young lady." Thirty years of living in America and Amelia Williams still had the world’s strongest Scottish accent. The elder woman firmly grasped her daughter’s wrist and dragged her back into the living room. "Three weeks, you've been gone three weeks without saying anything to anyone."

 

Lee sat down on the sofa, shrinking into the green fabric and looking down very pointedly at her shoes. Amy was moving about the living room with swiftness unknown for a woman of her age. She was muttering to herself, shooting pointed glances at the girl on the couch. Rory scuffled out after a few moments, placing a cup of coffee in front of Lee before settling down into his favorite chair.

 

"I'm sorry." Lee winced.

 

Her mother turned around to look at her with glaring eyes. "Are you, because it was really fun to have the FBI come and enquire after where one of their employees was, day after day. How long have you worked for the FBI anyway?"

 

"Since 66" She replied woodenly.

 

"You can’t just run off like this Lily, it’s the middle of the cold war. They could torture you and burn you for treason." Lee was still looking down, her eyes filling with tears. She looked more like a lost child than anything else in the moment. "Are you hearing me, this isn't the time for an extended holiday."

 

Lee looked up at her mother and father, her eyes swimming with tears. "It's 1969." She croaked.

 

"So." Amy shot back.

 

"They were never just stories mom and I know that." Lily yelled. Amy sat down in a chair looking stunned as her daughter began to weep before her. "I've known, about the Doctor, about River. I've always known who I really am."

 

"How?" Rory was looking stricken, more scared than he had ever been in a very long time.

 

"I don’t forget. Ever." She was looking far away her eyes glazed over in pain. "I remember being born on the TARDIS. I remember the look in her eyes the first time my mother held me and the pain in her face as twenty four hours later I was ripped from her arms. I remember being a day old and being poked and prodded as scientists tried to figure out what I was. I remember every day of my life." The tears were streaming down her face.

 

Amy was hugging her tightly as she ran a hand through her hair gently; Rory had moved over and was trying to comfort her as well. "So all those times you forgot about your curfew." Amy laughed through tears and she pulled back to looked at her daughter.

 

"That's not all." Lee’s voice was small as both her parents moved away from her. This was the beginning of the end, she thought as she looked around at the house which she had grown up in. Or maybe it was really the end of one life, and the beginning of another. "I think that there must be some genetic way to pass on memories. It makes sense for an individual who is regenerating, but I guess I'm too different. I have bits and pieces of memories that aren't my own. More from _him,_ but I have some from her as well." She paused.

 

It was as if Amy and Rory had been told the worst news of their life, and they didn’t even know the half of it. Lee knew things that neither of them did. She knew of the good times and the bad. She had seen, through the memories of her real father, the events of the Time War and what had happened at The Library. But they still looked at her as if she was a child. In a way she was, but at twenty four years old in 1969, she had outlived this era.

 

"It's 1969, I work for the FBI and we all know what is about to happen. I can’t be here right now."

 

"Where are you going to go?" Rory asked calmly.

 

Lily chuckled, truly not knowing how her next words would go over. "It wasn't three weeks for me. It was three days, in 2035."

 

Amy and Rory both looked at each other very sternly for a moment before breaking into laughter. "We always wondered why he didn’t just pick us up in 1940's New Jersey." Rory replied lightly. But they had always assumed that would have taken us a little too much planning on the Doctors end, and besides they had out grown him.

 

"No that’s not what I mean." Lee pulled out the sleek metal bracelet which she had perfected in the last three days. "I only joined the FBI because it was the only way a woman in this era could get close to the level of technology I needed in order to make this." She held it in her hands, a sleek sliver band with hidden touch controls.

 

"You could come with me, see the universe again. Or earth actually, I don't have coordinates for any other placed in the universe. Do you happen to know when earth gets blown into oblivion or becomes uninhabitable, because I don’t want to hop too far into the future."  They looked at her with such pride that for a moment Lee seemed to think that everything was going to be alright, that this wasn’t goodbye.

 

But Amy and Rory had stopped traveling the stars thirty years ago, and they had no intention to take up the sport again. They always knew she was going to grow up in the most unusual of ways. That she would pick a career that went against the expectations of the era that she would always rebel. And in the back of their minds they assumed that one day she would run off in a blue box, because it was just too much in her nature. Lily Williams, their miracle child, she would see more than they could ever imagine.

 

"You need to quit your job," Amy whispered as she looked at the time machine in her daughters hands. "And come up with some good excuse that puts you out of the country for the rest of your life." Lee nodded, this really was the end.

 

"If you ever need money, hop to the turn of the century and cash out our stocks on IBM, Microsoft and Apple." Rory added.

 

"And you can always come home Lily.” Amy shook her head a bit. Lily was the name she had given the girl twenty four years ago. But it always seemed that her daughters tended to shy away from their given names. “Lee, you really can come home. No matter what happens. Just promise me you'll try and find an era where you belong." Amy hugged her once more and stood up, wiping away at the tears on her face.  She walked into the hallway and came back a few minutes later with a small leather journal. She placed the tan book on the table and pushed it towards Lee. "Open it."

 

Lee opened the first page, expecting it to be blank. But the handwritten words on the first page made her tear up instead. "Advice on Time Travel, by Rory and Amelia Williams." She flipped through the book silently looking at the somewhat comical to rather insightful words which her parents had scribbled down.

 

 1: Find out where and when you are as soon as possible.

2\. When in doubt, run…

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the end, but it is the end of a major chapter in Lee's life so I have marked this as finished.
> 
> I will certainty come back and add chapters about her childhood if the inspiration strikes, but I will be moving onto longer and more serialized stories about her travels in time.
> 
> I'll do my best to post regularly but work is very crazy right now.


End file.
